OVERLOADING 

If you are involved in the construction, maintenance and operation of roads in any way, overloading will be of concern to you. If that's your only focus as it is for the South African National Roads Agency Ltd (Sanral), then overloading takes a high position on your priority list, especially if you are being held accountable by toll road concessionaires for damage being incurred by overloaded trucks. With this in mind, FleetWatch asked Sanral what its approach is to overloading. Here are Sanral's views.

Contrary to the beliefs of some, the South African National Roads Agency Ltd is not a law enforcement agency. However, it has a direct interest in its level and efficiency. Of particular concern to Sanral are the problems of overloading and our poor road safety figures. The company involves itself in these activities through agreements with other authorities that are tasked to carry out law enforcement.

Sanral has an indirect responsibility towards its road concessionaires for law enforcement. If overloading damages the roads of the concessionaires, it (Sanral) must compensate them for the damage caused. Loss of infrastructure through overloading on all other roads is carried by Sanral itself. Quite obviously, it is important to Sanral that the damage caused by overloaded vehicles is limited as far as possible and that claims by concessionaires for road damage are avoided.

It would be easy enough for Sanral to protect its roads by means of weighbridges and leave the provinces and cities to bear the brunt of the overloading that will inevitably deviate to their roads. This would not, however, be a responsible course of action for the company to take - and neither would it benefit the country in any way. Also, the problems of road damage, unfair competition in the trucking industry and the road safety risks raised by overloading would not disappear.

Clearly, overloading control solutions need to be implemented in cooperation with provincial and local authority partners involved in roads and law enforcement. Any solution provided is required to be as cost efficient as possible, send the right message to the trucking industry and promote the responsible use of our roads. Bearing all this in mind, Sanral's strategy for overloading control is based on several important principles.

First of all, Sanral's approach is to form partnerships with other authorities and the private sector to create and operate overloading control infrastructure. The implementation of overloading control systems requires life cycle costing to drive system design, the entering into formal agreements between Sanral and other parties involved and the clear allocation of duties and responsibilities.

Secondly, the National Overloading Control Strategy of the Department of Transport not only deals with law enforcement but also encourages the private sector to implement self regulation in respect of loading. Sanral strongly supports the Road Transport Management System (RTMS) initiative, which advocates best practise in respect of the loading of vehicles, their roadworthiness, driver wellness and the conduct of consignees and consignors.

RTMS is currently being developed into an accreditation scheme consisting of various parts, the first of which has been finalised (Code of Recommended Practice, ARP 067-01). The two other ARP documents are nearing completion. After a period of trial implementation, the ARP documents will be developed into fully fledged SANS standards. Responsible companies, whether they may be consignors of goods or hauliers of consignees, will be able to seek accreditation in the industry and will be able to lay claim to a higher level of management responsibility and compliance with the laws of the country.

Thirdly, Sanral's future approach will be to build as few major overloading control centres as possible but will augment these with numerous lay-byes where trucks can be weighed. If any truck is suspected to be overloaded at a lay-bye, it will be electronically tagged and sent to the nearest properly equipped weighing centre to be legally weighed, while being monitored on its way by a tracking system. This kind of system offers the most flexibility for scaling operations up or down according to demand. Electronic systems are developed by the private sector and are abreast of the latest tracking and weighing technology.

Finally, the agreements that Sanral enters into with its various partners and contracted parties are crafted to secure permanent system and facility maintenance, services by the traffic law enforcement agencies and system management according to service level standards.